


Of Storms and Sorrows

by ReminiscentRevelry



Series: Of Fullmetal and Feelings [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Automail, Automail Pain, Canon Disabled Character, Chronic Pain, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Not Shippy, Parental Roy Mustang, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, for fuck's sake give this boy some therapy, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23374690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReminiscentRevelry/pseuds/ReminiscentRevelry
Summary: There's a storm in East City and Roy Mustang ends up with a drenched Fullmetal on his doorstep in the middle of the night.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Roy Mustang
Series: Of Fullmetal and Feelings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645903
Comments: 13
Kudos: 483





	Of Storms and Sorrows

East City got a decent amount of rain throughout the year and as much as Roy Mustang hated how it made his alchemy near impossible to use, he liked the weather. It gave a nice ambience to the cobblestone streets and brick buildings, the sound of the rain against window panes was soothing, and he found it relaxing when he wasn’t caught in the downpour.

He was at his kitchen table looking over some paperwork when there was a knock on his door, barely audible over the pounding rain. A storm had rolled in from the north and had lasted most of the day with no sign of letting up. He looked at the clock and frowned - as late as it was, no one should be calling on him.

He took his gun from his entry table before answering the door, surprised to see Edward Elric standing on his doorstep, soaking wet and angry.

“Fullmetal?” he asked. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in New Optain.”

Ed sneezed and scowled at him. “Got an early train,” he muttered. 

Mustang blinked. “Where’s Al?”

Ed’s scowl deepened and Mustang sighed and opened the door wider, unloading his gun and setting it in its proper place. Ed didn’t move from the mat in his entryway, looking uncomfortable when he shut and locked the door.

“Al got a hotel,” he mumbled. “I’m still blacklisted.”

That was right. Ed had damaged part of the local hotel while chasing a thief and they’d blacklisted him for a month - after he’d fixed the damage, free of charge. Mustang had sent him on a mission hoping it would last longer than the ban.

“The dorms?” he asked. He dug around his hall closet and found his clean towels, tossing them to Ed. 

“Couldn’t get in,” Ed said. He wrapped the towel around his head and Mustang sighed. He pulled on Ed’s hood, taking the drenched coat and hanging it over a chair.

Normally, he’d be annoyed if someone came to him expecting hospitality without warning him, but Ed had been out of town when the new curfews for the dorms were set in place and Mustang figured it was better he came to him than try and break into the dorm or annoy the hotel staff into letting him stay with his brother.

“You’ve never been above breaking into the dorms or my office before,” he said, setting down a towel for Ed’s boots. “What’s changed? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and grown up on us, Fullmetal.”

He glanced at Ed, smirking, but it dropped when he saw how slowly Ed was moving. His teeth were clenched and his hands were shaking as he unlaced his boots and Mustang realized that he was much paler than normal.

“Fullmetal? What’s wrong?”

Ed hissed as he yanked off his left boot, pooled water splashing onto the floor as he fell back. He dropped the boot and paused to grab at his leg.

“Damn storm,” he muttered, wincing as he pushed on his leg - right where it turned into his automail, Mustang realized. It was his automail that was bothering him. 

Mustang bit his cheek, mad at himself that he’d forgotten - automail ports were vulnerable to pain during weather shifts, it was why Briggs had spent so much time developing a lighter alloy for their prostheses. Minimize the pain to maximize the utility. Ed, with his steel limbs, would feel the pressure shift much more than anyone else.

He knelt down and unlaced Ed’s other shoe, placing it with its pair and mopping up the spilled water.

“I can do it myself,” Ed said, but his voice lacked its normal vigor. Soaked and pale and in pain, he looked more like a wet cat than the demonic teenager Mustang was used to.

He sighed and offered him a hand, pulling him to his feet. Ed rocked on his heels, hissing and pushing his hand against his shoulder as Mustang pushed him toward the bathroom, where he leaned against the wall as he held up a hand for Ed to wait. He came back with a set of academy pajamas and set them on the counter.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Mustang said, letting the door click shut behind him. Ed had stayed with him once before, a year or so prior. He’d caught the flu and Mustang wasn’t about to have him spread it around the dorms or a hotel, so he’d given Al a key and his address and free reign of his kitchen to help his brother. Ed had been delirious and exhausted and had still tried to argue, but Mustang had gotten home hours later to find him buried under a pile of blankets and dead asleep on his couch.

Ed shuffled into the kitchen a few minutes later, still wringing his hair out with a towel but in dry clothes. Less wet cat, more tired teenager, though still not the angry, fiery teen he was used to. He sat down across from Mustang, eyes skimming the papers between them.

“State Alchemist applications?” he asked.

“Mm. The exams are next month, after the recertifications.” He tapped his pen against the papers, not writing anything as he read them. The kettle clicked off and he got up, pouring out two mugs of tea and setting one in front of Ed.

“How was New Optain?” he asked. He shuffled the papers together, sorting them into an organized pile as Ed stirred honey into his tea.

“Another false lead,” Ed said. “The alchemist was using sleight of hand tricks to hide the materials he was using for his transmutations. Nothing useful. I left the report with Al so he could write it up neater.”

Mustang noted the sad slump of Ed’s shoulders, barely hidden by the towel around his neck. His research had been coming up drier than ever and it was clearly starting to get to him.

“Hughes sent me word about an alchemist in the West,” Mustang said. “They’ve been using Cretan methods in their research in biomedical alchemy. Supposedly, they’ve been able to reattach people’s limbs they lost in a mining incident.”

Ed flinched and Mustang paused, looking up from his papers. He was shaking in his seat, his mug rattling in his automail hand. Mustang wasn’t sure if it was because he was cold or because he was in pain.

“You should get some sleep,” he said quietly. “You can take the bedroom.”

Ed shook his head. “No, I’m fine-”

“Bullshit,” Mustang said, sharper than he meant to. “Your ports are hurting from the storm and you’re beating yourself up over chasing a false lead. You need to rest, Ed.”

Ed blinked at him, shock clear in his eyes. For all he and Mustang had argued, however often he called him a bastard, he’d rarely heard more than a ‘damn’ come from his superior officer, and he’d almost never heard Mustang have that hard an edge to his voice - he’d barely even heard his own name come out of his mouth. It was always ‘Fullmetal’, or ‘Elric’ if he’d properly pissed Mustang off. Never Edward. Never Ed.

“Okay,” he said softly. “G’night, then.” He slipped out of the kitchen, footsteps uneven and tentative as he went down the hall to the bedroom. 

Mustang sighed and set down his papers, putting his head in his hands. He’d never been one to be gentle with Ed - Hawkeye was the kind one, Hughes was the fatherly one. He wasn’t stern so much as he was blunt and dry. He liked things clear cut and simple, but Ed’s emotions weren’t either, and he wondered if he’d been too harsh with him.

He’d told Hughes once that Ed had signed away his childhood when he became a Dog of the State, but Hughes had been quick to point out that didn’t change the fact that Ed was still a teenager, rife with hormones and emotions that he would have to deal with. Combined with the trauma Hughes didn’t know about, Mustang sometimes wondered if Ed would be able to grow into a functional adult or if he’d break before he got that far. His mood wouldn’t shift from angry to forlorn to manic the way he’d seen in other soldiers, but he would cling to his anger and weaponize it, turning it into a defense to protect himself. He only softened his defenses around Al and Mustang worried sometimes how it was affecting their development.

From down the hall he heard a soft thump. He froze, listening for a second. After a few moments, soft murmuring and whimpers traveled down the hall. He sighed and got up, leaving the mugs on the table and his papers for the morning. Cracking the door, he saw that Ed had knocked a book off the nightstand and the blankets were tossed around. Ed, splayed across the bed, was twitching in his sleep, mumbling.

“Al…” he mumbled, scratching his real hand at his automail port, “no… give…”

Mustang sighed again and crossed the room to shake Ed’s shoulder, arm stretched out. “Fullmetal,” he said quietly, “wake up.”

“Al - Mom -  _ AL!” _

Ed shot upright, metal arm outstretched with a closed fist that Mustang dodged, grabbing Ed’s metal wrist with a hand. Ed stared at him, breath caught in his throat for a moment until his gaze relaxed the slightest bit. He pulled his arm back once Mustang loosened his grip, burying his face in his hands and pulling his metal knee to his chest.

“Nightmares?” Mustang asked, sitting at the foot of the bed. He watched him carefully, unsure if Ed would jump to fight if he got too close.

“Same shit as always,” Ed muttered. He didn’t lift his forehead from his metal knee, arms linked loosely around his calf. His flesh foot was pressing into Mustang’s leg, but he didn’t move it. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Mustang glanced at the clock - Ed had maybe been asleep for maybe ten minutes. To fall into a deep enough sleep that quickly and start having nightmares, he had to have been exhausted.

He didn’t look at Mustang, didn’t lift his head from his knee, but he could see the sheen of sweat on his brow, the shake of his hands around his leg.

Cold could help nausea to a degree, but he recognized the way Ed’s shoulders stiffened and shot across the room to grab his wastebasket, shoving it at Ed just before he started retching. 

“Dammit,” Ed muttered, pushing the basket away.  _ “Dammit.” _

Mustang blinked, surprised to see Ed’s eyes pooling with wet tears. “Fullmetal?” he murmured. “It’s all right, the storm -”

“It’s not the storm,” Ed mumbled, voice a half-choked sob. “I get to feel all this - these  _ things _ \- the pain and the puking and the hurt - but Al doesn’t get to feel anything and it’s  _ all my fault.” _

Survivor’s guilt. Likely strengthened by both the pain in his automail that was reminding Ed of their attempt at human transmutation and the fact that he’d chased another false lead across the Eastern state with little to show for it. Coupled with nightmares and separation from his brother -

“Do you need to call Al?” Mustang asked. 

Ed shook his head, wiping his mouth with his arm. “He doesn’t need to worry ‘bout me,” Ed rasped. “He’d ask me why I wasn’t asleep and figure out that I’d had nightmares again and come down here to fuss and -”

He broke off, glaring at Mustang out of the corner of his eye for a brief second. Scowling, he put his forehead against his automail again, letting out a shuddering breath.

“Why d’you even care?” Ed growled. “Not like it matters to you.”

Mustang heaved a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, setting the basket down and sitting on the bed again.

“It does matter,” he said carefully. “It’s part of my responsibility to monitor your mental state and determine whether you’re still fit for duty after your missions, Fullmetal.”

“Right, no use for a dog that can’t hunt,” Ed grumbled.

“It’s not that,” Mustang said, trying not to snap. “I can’t send you on a mission if I have reason to believe you won’t come back. I can’t risk putting you in a situation you can’t handle because it’ll cause danger to you and anyone around you.”

Ed glared at Mustang but there was no fire behind it, no true anger.

“Did you ever hear what happened to Armstrong in the war?” Mustang asked. Ed tilted his head slightly, enough indication that he  _ didn’t _ know for Mustang to continue. “He broke in Ishval. Got sent home before the end of the war. It took  _ years _ for them to approve him for field work again because he couldn’t hide the effect Ishval had on him. Sending a broken soldier into the field will get them and the rest of their unit killed. We have to be able to predict what people will do, trust that they’ll follow orders.”

He shifted slightly to lean toward Ed. “I know you’ve gotten through the annual meetings with the checks in all the right boxes, but I can and  _ will _ have them re-evaluate you if I think you can’t handle being in the field.”

“I’m  _ fine!” _

“So am I,” Mustang said, a wry grin working its way onto his face - all teeth and ferocity and not an ounce of regret. “So is Hawkeye. So is Hughes. Which is to say that none of us are  _ really _ fine, we just know how to act like it so we can get our jobs done.”

Ed frowned at him. The pain from his ports, while now a dull throb, was enough to cloud his head that he wasn’t entirely sure where the conversation had trailed. It had seemed like Mustang wanted him to get his act together and prove to him that he could manage just fine, but he also seemed to have some concern about Ed’s mental and physical health.

His throat hurt from throwing up and his head was starting to hurt. He wanted to sleep but the pain kept him awake and the nightmares kept clawing at the edges of his mind, the pictures blocking out the rest of his thoughts.

“How do you do it?” Ed asked. 

“Be more specific,” Mustang said. 

“How do  _ you _ handle it?” Ed asked. “The guilt, the nightmares, everything.”

Mustang leaned back, bracing himself with his hands behind him on the mattress. It was the most relaxed posture Ed had ever seen him take, shoulders lax and head tilted toward the ceiling as he thought.

“Compartmentalizing,” he said at last. “If I stay focused on something else, let that occupy me, I won’t be as inclined to think about the war or the mistakes I’ve made. It’s not the recommended approach, to push all of your emotions down, but it works.”

He looked at Ed and all there was in his eyes was worn exhaustion, like he was only now slowing down enough for the energy he’d spent to catch up to him and make him tired. Ed could relate to it, but he didn’t reflect it in his own eyes. All he had was dull pain and grief, easy for anyone to see.

Last time he was in Central, Hughes had made a comment that Ed wore his heart on his sleeve. Ed had yelled at him but wondered later how Mustang, by comparison, managed to keep a facade of laziness around an arrogant composure when Ed  _ knew _ he ran himself ragged six days of the week and only rested when Hawkeye threatened him.

“Compartmentalizing,” Ed murmured. “Huh.”

Mustang brought a balled hand down on Ed’s head, pushing him slightly. “Focus on your task, Fullmetal, that’s the only advice I can give you.” He stood and stretched, putting his hands on his hips. “That said, I’m not sending you out on another mission until Grumman signs off on your evaluation. The last thing I need is to have you traipsing across the country one of the few times you’re actually needed.”

Ed waved a hand. “Right, right, compile all my research and drop it on your desk.” He yawned, wincing slightly as his shoulder twinged. He rubbed it, muttering, “Damn storm.”

Mustang frowned and walked out, returning after a minute with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. He shook out two, offering them to Ed.

“Take these now,” he said when Ed took them. “If it still hurts in the morning, take two more.”

Ed raised an eyebrow, looking at the pills in his hand. “Painkillers?”

“You’ve got a higher pain tolerance than most soldiers,” Mustang said. “If your automail is bothering you that much, you need to take something before you throw up again.”

Ed knocked back the pills, frowning at Mustang. “How do you know about my pain tolerance?”

Mustang snorted. “You got your ribs cracked during that gang bust and you got up and chased the leader three blocks like it was nothing.”

“They didn’t get me that bad,” Ed grumbled.

“If they’d hit you any harder you’d have had a punctured lung and desk duty for three months,” Mustang said flatly. 

Ed scowled and turned away and Mustang smiled, though he turned it into a smirk before Ed could see it.

“Get some rest, Fullmetal,” he said as he clicked off the light. “The storm should let up by morning.”

Ed didn’t reply when he shut the door, listening to Mustang’s footsteps fade down the hall and into the living room. The painkillers were strong ones, already working fast on numbing his ports. He felt like his head was clearing up and it was easier to think without the haze of throbbing pain, though the nightmare images were still fresh in his mind. Distantly, a crack of thunder rolled over the city, far enough away that it was faint. 

In Resembool, the spring storms would have thunder that rattled the windows in their panes and turned the dirt paths to mud. The river would flood past the levee and the town would retreat to the hills, where anyone who had space would open up their guest beds and couches to the people who couldn’t get home because of the floods.

East City was different. The storm drains cleared the roads of excess water and took it down to the river. There wasn’t a risk of flooding, not unless someone blocked the storm drains and dammed the river. The thunder could still rattle the windows, but the roads were stone and asphalt - the only mud came from yards and gardens and parks and Eastern Command’s training grounds. 

Before everything, Ed liked the storms. He liked listening to the rain fall and reading books by the fire with Al.

Now it just made his ports hurt and reminded him of where he went wrong.

With the pain subsiding, though, he could hear the rain for what it was and for the first time in years, instead of keeping him awake, it lulled him to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> where do these ideas come from? i don't know. i like writing ed and roy talking to each other like they're on equal footing but i'm always inclined to make roy try and tease ed because he's a little shit.  
> comments and kudos are loved and welcomed


End file.
